However, for now Natasha Lytess was the least of Marilyn’s worries. At the beginning of production, Marilyn had received permission to travel to New York to perform at President Kennedy’s birthday party on the 19 May. She was committed to the appearance, having been specially invited to perform, and in May (while she was absent from the set), newspapers reported that she was ‘knocking herself out’ to rehearse for her performance.
On 11 May Fox’s Peter Levathes spoke to lawyer Milton Rudin to inform him that he would not consent to Marilyn attending the celebration, since they were now so far behind schedule. However, when she returned to the set on 14 May, Marilyn either did not know of this withdrawn consent or did not care. Either way, on 17 May she left Los Angeles for New York, telling reporters, ‘I told the studio six weeks ago that I was going. I consider it an honour to appear before the President of the United States.’
Pat Newcomb threw in her two cents’ worth by saying, ‘It was a democratic fundraising affair and she didn’t want to break her promise to such an important organization.’ Back on the set, no one could believe she had gone: ‘It was like the roof caving in. It was awful,’ remembered Evelyn Moriarty.
Rumours of an affair between Marilyn and both Jack and Robert Kennedy have been rife since the 1960s. The general feeling is that she was romanced by Jack, then later passed along to Bobby when the President had become bored. There is no concrete evidence to prove or disprove these rumours, but she certainly met them both on several occasions, including at a party at the home of Peter Lawford and his wife, Patricia Kennedy, in October 1961, when she bombarded Patricia’s brother, Bobby, the Attorney General, with questions supplied by Daniel Greenson. Then Whitey Snyder drove Marilyn to the Lawfords’ home in February 1962, where there was a party held for President Kennedy, while Ralph Roberts was said to have received a call from her on 24 March 1962 as she was spending time with the President at the home of Bing Crosby.
Meanwhile, Vanessa Steinberg, daughter of Marilyn’s gynaecologist Oscar Steinberg, remembered her father sharing thoughts on the Kennedy relationship with her: ‘By the time my father saw Marilyn at Cedars hospital in Los Angeles [c.1961] she was well and truly having an affair with Robert Kennedy. According to him it was Bobby Kennedy whom she was madly in love with and she had no intention of returning to a relationship with DiMaggio.’ Interestingly, Steinberg also told his daughter that Marilyn had fallen for Kennedy whilst she was still with Miller.
Press representative Michael Selsman firmly believes she was having an affair with both Kennedy brothers at different times: ‘Of course she was and everyone knew it, but in those days, the press had a different relationship with celebs, both in showbiz and in politics. I usually gave reporters inside stuff on other clients to assuage their desire to publish something about Marilyn and the Kennedys.’
In the 1980s Eunice Murray affirmed that both brothers were important in Marilyn’s life, and certainly we know that she was friends with Patricia Kennedy and Peter Lawford. But as for a romance, some people are doubtful. Certainly a friend of Bobby Kennedy’s later told reporters that there was not even the faintest romantic interest on either side, and that the relationship only consisted of Bobby providing a friendly ear for Marilyn’s numerous problems. Not everyone in Marilyn’s circle trusted the rumours either: ‘I never believed 90 per cent of what was written about the involvement with the Kennedys,’ remarked Whitey Snyder some thirty years later.
Regardless of that, Marilyn certainly caused a stir at President Kennedy’s birthday party, when she arrived with her ex-father-in-law Isidore Miller. Wearing a skin-tight, sparkling dress which was designed to make her look nude, Marilyn shimmered her way on to the stage, after being introduced by Peter Lawford as ‘The late Marilyn Monroe’, the running joke of the evening being that Marilyn was never on time. She stood for a moment, looking around her, before breathily reciting ‘Happy Birthday Mr President’, and a reworking of ‘Thanks for the Memory’.
In Nevada, old flame Bill Pursel was watching: ‘I saw this performance on TV and just shook my head in disgust. I don’t think I’m a prude, far from it actually . . . But there’s something about this type of public exhibition which lowers the respect for femininity. What in hell was she trying to prove?’
Marilyn was extremely nervous on the evening of the party, and certainly the grainy footage seems to show her a little ‘tipsy’, but she got through it all okay; prompting John F. Kennedy to announce: ‘I can now retire from politics after having had Happy Birthday sung to me in such a sweet, wholesome way.’
When Marilyn returned to Los Angeles, she spoke with reporters about her experience at Madison Square Garden: ‘I liked it. I like celebrating birthdays. I enjoy knowing that I’m alive; and you can underline alive.’ However, she was sad that she had lost a good luck charm – a pawn from her chess set – and felt extremely fatigued, which once again affected her work on the film, preventing close-ups and forcing filters to be used to hide her exhaustion.
On 22 May Marilyn refused to work with Dean Martin as he had a slight cold and she was afraid of catching it, but on the next day everyone’s spirits were raised when she filmed a nude swim scene, which was the first ever by a major American actress. Suffering from earache, Marilyn did not take the scene lightly: she banned most people from the set and demanded that Whitey Snyder look through the lens to make sure it was not too risqué. She was happy with the results, though, and delighted that the photos would ‘knock Liz Taylor off the front pages’.
That weekend Henry Weinstein tried to contact her to no avail and on Monday she phoned in sick. When she turned up on Tuesday, 29 May she was unfocused and repeatedly forgot her lines. On the morning of 1 June, Marilyn’s thirty-sixth birthday, Evelyn Moriarty went to Farmer’s Market to pick up her birthday cake. Arriving back on set, she was shocked to be told that under no circumstances must she bring it on to the set until 5.30 p.m. ‘She’s got to do a full day’s work first,’ she was told.
By the end of the day, the sparkle-decorated cake was wheeled out, along with a personalized ‘Happy Birthday (suit)’ card, which everyone had signed. Marilyn loved the gesture and stayed for a while to enjoy a small celebration, before heading to Dodger Stadium to attend a charity baseball game. For once all seemed to be well, but again it was a misapprehension; on 2 June, the Greenson children were shocked to find Marilyn depressed and inconsolable at her home in Brentwood, so much so that they called Dr Leon Uhley who was standing in for their father while he was holidaying in Europe. Uhley was so shocked to see Marilyn in such a state that he promptly confiscated her pills. Then by Monday she was unable to work once again, reportedly causing everyone on the set to ‘tear our hair out’.
By this time it became apparent that Marilyn was in a terrible state, and as a result, Dr Greenson was forced to leave his wife in Rome and return to Los Angeles. He arrived at Marilyn’s house to find her heavily drugged but feeling much better, and immediately went into a meeting with Fox executives, assuring them that he could get her back on to the set, and declaring that although he did not want his relationship to be described as a Svengali one, he could persuade her to do ‘anything reasonable’ that he wanted. But unfortunately for both Marilyn and Greenson, Fox had had enough. Feeling the stresses and strains of delays on the set of Elizabeth Taylor’s film, Cleopatra, they just could not believe that Marilyn would complete the film without incident, and on 8 June, announced that she had been fired.
Almost straight away Fox took out a $500,000 lawsuit against their star, citing Marilyn’s failure and refusal to perform in Something’s Got to Give, and she even found herself lumbered with an invoice for $5,000 from the production photographer Don Ornitz, a situation that infuriated Pat Newcomb so much that she called in Marilyn’s lawyer, Milton Rudin. Meanwhile, people started to blame her for the loss of 104 jobs. ‘In my opinion, Marilyn cannot face reality,’ commented one crew member, while an extra was quick to tell the press that she took hours to get to th
e set, stumbled on her lines, then had lunch in her dressing room. Marilyn tried to counteract this backlash with telegrams hand-delivered to cast and crew on 11 June. In each one she explained that what happened was not her fault and that she had so looked forward to working on the picture.
She also confided to staff at the Arthur P. Jacobs Agency that she believed the studio was in a panic, choosing to blame her because it had overextended itself on Cleopatra, and pointing out that there were still scenes to be shot that didn’t involve her, and which had not even been written yet. In short, Marilyn was angry and for good reason; she had worked at the studio for sixteen years, was by far their biggest player and yet she had still been fired. ‘Remember, you’re not a star,’ they had told her in 1952, a philosophy still adhered to by various executives in the summer of 1962.
Marilyn’s representatives were keen to get the film back on track just as soon as possible, with 23 July being put forward as a possible start-date. They informed Fox of their wishes, and the studio replied with a stern letter, stating that if the film were to go back into production on that date, there would have to be a number of strict rules in place: there would be no consultation or approval over co-stars, other players, director, script, number of takes, photos, crew (including make-up, hairdresser or wardrobe); Marilyn would have to arrive at the studio on time and take lunch breaks only at times specified by Fox; Paula Strasberg would not be allowed on set and neither would her PR representatives, agents or associates of her lawyer. In short, Marilyn was to have no control over any aspect of the film but in return, Fox would drop their lawsuit against her.
This letter did nothing for relations between studio and star, but fortunately for Marilyn, she still had her allies on set, with one player declaring that he could not feel bitter towards her: ‘I can’t forget the sadness I saw in her eyes.’ Dean Martin also proved to be a true friend, when Fox told him they were replacing Marilyn with Lee Remick; he shook his head, handed in his resignation, and walked off set, much to Marilyn’s delight.
Eager to keep herself in the public eye, Marilyn embarked on a series of PR exercises, one of which was the long-awaited Vogue photo spread with photographer Bert Stern, on 23–5 June. Then shortly after she undertook a variety of sessions for Cosmopolitan, with friend and photographer George Barris, during which time he took hundreds of photos on the sand behind the Lawford house and in a privately owned home in the Hollywood Hills.
On the surface at least, it appeared that Marilyn was taking control of her life and career: she attended several meetings to get Something’s Got to Give back into production, she went to a party for Robert Kennedy at the Lawfords’ beach house, and enjoyed the numerous photo sessions. But not everything was rosy, as Michael Selsman remembered: ‘She was upset about various things – always. It was clear she was unhappy 24/7.’ Some of her friends worried about her mental health, too, with the threat of an overdose being high on their list of concerns: ‘It was a problem for her friends,’ confided one associate. Meanwhile, she was not in the best physical health, still addicted to pills and now receiving liver injections from Dr Engelberg in an effort to strengthen her system.
During interviews she did with George Barris, Marilyn spoke about the subject of adoption, declaring her belief that no single person should ever adopt a child, as ‘there’s no Ma or Pa there’. Considering her earlier plans to adopt the Mexican boy, these comments are intriguing and lead to questions about whether or not the adoption plans had fallen through.
Shortly after her death, it was reported in the Mexican press that Marilyn had become thoroughly depressed over a sudden coldness from José Bolaños, yet this seems an absurd notion, since the relationship never appeared to be anything but casual. What could be closer to the truth is that her depression was brought on by the realization that Bolaños was unable or unwilling to help with the adoption plans. In 1963, reporter Glenn Thomas Carter asked him why the adoption had fallen through, but he refused to answer, stating that it was between himself and Marilyn. If she had simply changed her mind, or if legal aspects had been the problem, surely there would be no reason to withhold his answer. But if Bolaños had decided not to help with the adoption, perhaps the fear that this had been what finally pushed her ‘over the edge’ was enough to stop him ever discussing his famous friend.
As for the child himself, reporter Glenn Thomas Carter found him in Mexico City a year after Marilyn’s death, where he was living with a couple and going to school. Describing her as a ‘beautiful friend’, the child told the reporter: ‘I was sad for many months because the beautiful blonde senorita did not come for me as she promised.’ He has never been found again.
Adding to the complications surrounding Marilyn’s life in 1962 is the rumour that, sometime during the summer, she either aborted a baby or suffered a miscarriage. There is no documented evidence to prove or disprove this, but press representative Michael Selsman insists that he heard the story at the time: ‘Marilyn didn’t directly tell me,’ he recalled; ‘Arthur [Jacobs] and I were told by Pat [Newcomb], in that we had to know to counter any rumours – since the two major Hollywood columnists, Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper, had paid spies in the hospitals and labs, so they knew pretty much what was happening.’ Selsman believes the pregnancy to be a product ‘of either Jack or Bobby, she didn’t know which, since the switch had taken place recently’.
Adding to the mystery is a $25 invoice, dated 7 June 1962, from the office of Dr Steinberg and Dr Conti, which states Marilyn underwent an ‘X-ray of nasal bones’ procedure. This is an intriguing document for a variety of reasons, not least of which is the fact that Dr Steinberg was one of Marilyn’s gynaecologists, not a nasal specialist, while Dr Conti was his anaesthetist. Daughter Vanessa Steinberg was asked to comment on the invoice and had the following to say: ‘The procedure would have been performed at Cedars hospital in Los Angeles. [My father] saw her many times in Los Angeles and I am certain that the procedures did not involve x-raying of nasal bones. My father was not a nasal surgeon and I have no idea what the actual procedures where – I assume follow-on routine dilate and curette procedures for her gynaecological ailments, or else perhaps a termination or dilate and curette after a miscarriage? Apparently she suffered from severe endometriosis and this may have been a procedure in relation to that, which was written down as x-ray of nasal bones. I can only speculate that the procedure you refer to was something that she wanted to remain a secret and this is not an uncommon practice in medicine, particularly if the patient was a celebrity. I know that in New York she was treated and admitted to Mount Sinai under a pseudonym. I can say, with some certainty, that the procedure most likely had nothing to do with x-raying of nasal bones.’
This document not only adds fuel to the abortion/miscarriage rumour but also to a persistent story of Marilyn visiting plastic surgeon, Dr Gurdin, after what was described by Dr Greenson as a ‘fall in the shower’. Dr Gurdin had performed the slight plastic surgery on Marilyn’s chin all those years ago, and examined her in the summer of 1962, to determine if she had broken her nose. She hadn’t, but the appointment has been tied in with the ‘x-ray of nasal bones’ procedure over the years, although in reality it is extremely unlikely that they were in any way related.
During the upheavals and obvious health problems, both Marilyn and her representatives continued their quest to get Something’s Got to Give back into production, with pressure being put on Fox by the White House itself and Robert Kennedy in particular. Meanwhile, Pat Newcomb tried to keep her friend upbeat by sending a letter on 11 July which listed nineteen magazine and newspaper articles that had appeared over the past few weeks, along with a variety of others to look forward to in the future. She also sent a copy of Redbook magazine on 19 July, for which Marilyn had done an interview. Both star and representative were disappointed that the article did not contain the human insight they had wanted to see, but Newcomb herself felt it was the first positive story she’d read in quite some time.
/> Newcomb was trying very hard to cheer her client and friend but it came at a price, as by now unfair and absurd rumours were beginning to spread that their friendship was more than platonic. ‘They were very close friends,’ remembered Michael Selsman. ‘I never saw them do anything of an intimate nature together, but there were rumours.’ Disturbingly, Selsman remembered the rumours coming principally from some of the main players in Marilyn’s circle – people who she trusted and should have known better than to gossip about their friend and employer.
On 19 July Marilyn hosted a dinner party for Greenson’s children at Fifth Helena, then on 21 July, according to some sources, she underwent a gynaecological procedure at Cedars and was picked up afterwards by Joe DiMaggio. She rested for several days afterwards, and then resumed her summer of interviews and photos, while her lawyers continued their negotiations with Fox. One of the interviews Marilyn gave during that time was with Life’s Richard Meryman. It was the last one she ever gave, and in it she complained magnificently about the studio and the treatment of their stars, declaring for the first time in her career that fame was a burden. By the time the interview ended, Marilyn was beginning to worry about her comments and asked Meryman not to make her look like a joke. He promised he wouldn’t, and kept his word; when the article was published on 3 August 1962 it showed her as a mature, sensible woman, who was obviously learning much from the hand she’d been dealt.
On the weekend of 28–9 July, Marilyn travelled to Cal-Neva Lodge & Casino, in Lake Tahoe, where she visited with Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford and his wife Patricia. Much has been said about this weekend, from the depressing – Joe DiMaggio followed Marilyn but was not allowed on the premises, leaving her to watch him sadly from afar – to the truly disturbing – she was drugged and photographed in various states of undress in order to ensure her silence regarding her relationship with the Kennedys.
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